Why not thinking about This is Undermining your Marketing

We have all heard the phrase. And as much as it may be trite, it does ring true. What's more, its universality is as sure as night follows day: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Let’s take Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece, the Mona Lisa. Many would describe her features as homely — frankly, no one in their right minds can compare Ms. Lisa to Rihanna. However, Mona is referred to as one of the most beautiful women in art. And how do you explain men who are rabid fans of a losing team like Chelsea as opposed to a winning powerhouse like Manchester United? Furthermore, bell-bottomed trousers were gauche in the 80s and 90s until high-end fashion companies decided to reintroduce them in the noughties as boot-cut jeans, and that trend became de rigueur — until it was not, and skinny jeans became the rage. We are surreptitiously held hostage to internal whims and impulses that color our worldview. Additionally, our view of life is constantly influenced by external forces. Clearly, perception is reality.

Understanding this integral part of the human psyche and applying this knowledge to Marketing is essential in ensuring our products are bought, consumed and promoted by our target audience. The appreciation that perception is a driving force in sales (as opposed to variances in quality of product and pricing) is imperative. To put it plainly, when one wants to buy a burger, why does one choose Burger King over McDonalds? A BMW instead of an Audi? An iPhone instead of a Galaxy, yet the iPhone has less “horsepower”?

To regress, what is perception? Basically, perception in Marketing is what customers or prospects think your brand represents — not what your company says it is or does. Can a company shape brand perception? Absolutely. The easiest way to shape perception is by using price. Case in point: Apple recently unveiled $700 wheels for its desktop computer whose base model retails for $6000 before tax. Could they have priced the wheels at $50? Sure. However, they chose to price their well-produced engineered wheels at $700 to send the message and to cement the projection that Apple is a premium brand.

What happens, though, when two products are similarly priced? When your regular brand of juice is out of stock and you are faced with two brands that cost the same — which one will you buy? What will convince you to purchase box A as opposed to B? This is where perception comes in, because the choice you make is based on the marketing exposure (packaging and communication) that has reassured you of its value. This decision will be intuitive; a personal reaction to the brands.

What the customers care about is their perception of the world, which, said facetiously, are never wrong. For example, the widely held belief in vehicle maintenance is that Nissans are not as reliable as Toyotas. Therefore, if your Nissan has gone 300,000 kilometres without a single issue, you are incredibly lucky. Inversely, if your Toyota has reliability issues, it’s because you are the only person who bought a lemon. To wit, once someone has a positive perception of your brand, loyalty and advocacy is attained and seldom changed. That said, a product or company beset by negative brand perception can be transformed, but it with a huge investment in resources — both human and monetary.

For companies to be successful, this human idiosyncrasy needs to be defined, understood and leveraged. Amazon has done this brilliantly with their Prime Membership. For around $120 per year, you get offers galore guaranteed and sold by Amazon, not by third-party sellers. However, the true value of Amazon Prime is their 1-2 day delivery. In some areas, delivery is within hours. Amazon Prime has more than doubled its subscriptions from fifty million in 2015 to over 100 million subscribers in 2020. The insight Amazon focused on here is that for millions, quick delivery means trust, quality and dependability. The comprehension of Amazon Prime’s target audience’s persona has exponentially and positively increased Amazon’s brand perception, not to mention multiplying it’s ever-growing bottom line.

It is a flawed marketing theory to assume that the best product wins; that people will buy your product due to the technical advantages it has over the competition. People rely on referrals and various gut-fuelled touch-points to make decisions as to whether your brand is worthy. To quote the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room. What they say is rarely cerebral. It is more about the experience your brand delivers. As lovers maintain, they alone decide what is beautiful. It is all subjective. It is all perception.